Yeah, it was a good one overall but it sure didn't work out for me.
On Friday I made a big mistake probably due to a combination of things, but the primary one was brain fade. I added some additional speed to get around a couple of bikes holding me up in corner one, went to use the front brake to set the front end and instead somehow grabbed enough brake to instantly drop the forks and yank the rear wheel off the deck. This at a speed of @#$%-knows-what threw me off the left hand side of the bike as it violently flung itself into the air and I went so far that I was almost at the back corner of the property. I got up, looked at the bike and fairings all over the place, a large bike-sized hole in the grass, and sat back down again for a minute, feeling out-of-breath and in a light state of shock. As it turns out I was not really badly injured though both hands are a bit swollen and ache to use - but no breaks. I have bruises on my back and left leg, and had to throw my Shoei Beacon helmet in the trash with Doc Walker helping me to cut the straps.
One factor is that several people had monkeyed with the brake bias, I saw them doing it in the pit when I said that the brakes needed bleeding and they "tested" the brake lever. I remembered this and tested the brakes going out - there was slightly more bias than I like but I didn't think it was out of range as I worked the lever in the pit lane. Combine this with brain fade and ... moral of this story is defend your bike setup even if you have designated "helpers" in your pit.
So that sucked. I have three tanks and wheels coming - it was a package deal - for a very good price (well less than the price of a new tank alone). Have a rad already, and a subframe, so the bike should be back together by this weekend if all is well.
FML, though.
I came back and practiced Saturday and Sunday, riding John Taverner's GSX-R 1000. Really struggled with the bike and John was sceptical of some of my requests. Lucky for me, Jim Proulx offered to ride the bike and requested almost all the same things I did. We were able to get within about 8/10ths of our mutual requests and on Sunday's race I started out in 2nd and actually reeled Mike Hood in about 10 feet on the third lap, leaving most of the field a comfortable distance behind. Then, the engine burped on corner two - from next to no power to a full 200hp++ in about a second total, and had me out of the seat a good foot... if I had not been able to retain my light grip on the bars and/or my right foot on the peg, it would have been a 10,000 RPM in 3rd gear highside... that was unnerving enough, but on the next lap, the bike sounded like it had run out of fuel or had dropped a valve going through corner 1 - which was the same as earlier in the day when I assumed I had run out of fuel by uncovering the fuel pump pickup - there seemed like enough fuel in the tank, but it was the easy diagnosis. Well, now we had slightly more than half a tank in the beast and it was doing it... I pulled up to the Marshal, shut off the motor and he asked me what was wrong... I told him the engine died, and then said I might be able to make it to the pits... I fired up the bike and it was as if nothing had happened. So I rejoined the track and pushed for a minute before realising that I was never going to catch the group again, so I cruised to finish the race. And EVERY. SINGLE. LAP. after that the bike would shut itself mostly off when I bent it over into corner 1 at or near race pace. On the 7th lap, I tried it at a lower pace and the bike did not lose power until the other side of corner two, where it had burped and nearly spat me off - but it still did it. So, this problem shows up after 3 days of practice and ruins my race which was almost certainly a second placing and possibly better as I was holding and sometimes gaining on Mike after the first lap where he cleared some space. It wasn't to be.
FML #2.
But hey, Jeff Williams did really well and my battery was in his bike. That's worth something, right? :/
Some pics from our team:
Oh, and Mike Hood was on fire... I don't really think I could have caught him but I would have liked the chance.